Education and prosperity. It seems to me countries with an educated population and decent standard of living for the majority of the population have lower birth rates. I am not obsessed with controlling the population though, I think if we work together we can have enough resources for everyone, but of course that is idealistic I guess.

If I was King of the World, I would speak out about the importance of having some financial preparations done before they start having kids and of course, promoting the use of birth control methods, hopefully not as drastically as China’s method. But wait, being King of the World, I would rule Chna as well so hmmm, that would be awesome. I would probably rename the Great Wall the Fluther Wall or something. Lol.

@JLeslieThat would be quite the idealistic situation. And as much as I would love to see people working together for the greater good, America alone is too prideful and greedy to sink to the level of other countries. I agree. The way one lives definitely helps to define their lifestyle. People who are wealthy tend to be more rational in having their children than people like the Duggers, who are skirting by with food stamps and (now) almost 22 mouths to feed.

@MonstrousPeace I read recently that there is a trend towards fewer children in many third world countries, even among the poor. Not sure what is influencing it. I need to do some research. I remember in the report they showed a woman making something by hand, I got the impression she was supporting herself financially. Anyway, I am thinking if cultures around the world move away from male dominance that also will reduce the birth rate. Most women desire to control their fertility I think.

Gadzooks, there are many nations that have vast acreage of unused, or undeveloped land. It just seem crowded because too many people want to live in a given area. Not many places have the unique limitations that Japan has, where they just don’t have the space. Canada, China, Australia, the US, Russia, Brazil, for starters have a lot of land no one is living on. It may be out there with no Wal-Mart or Starbucks near by, but one can still live on it. When you have so many people wanting to live in places like Moscow, Manhattan, Mexico City, etc, those places seem crowded.

If I were king if the world I would set up planned communities in those open areas.

Invest in high population technologies, such as underground building technology, high rise buildings, argriculture and waste management technologies. Most important of all, space exploration investment.

No limits allowed, we use it as the excuse for pushing out in the the solar system.

I wouldn’t try. On the other hand, I wouldn’t subsidize increasing population, either. In developed economies such as the US, Canada, most of Europe and increasing parts of Asia, families incur net costs from raising children to maturity. In other parts of the world large families are required in order to put the children to work early, make up for high infant mortality rates and support the parents. That’s where overpopulation occurs, relative to the “carrying capacity” of the ground that the population lives on.

Developed economies that foster self-reliance (i.e., non welfare states) will have families that self-limit in size.

The developed world is already choosing abortion and euthanasia is getting popular. Disease is n all star population controller, disasters and war pick up the slack. Oh yes, ladies, don’t forget your birth control pill today. The real problem its greed and poverty not population.

Just because @Simone_De_Beauvoir said (correctly) that educated women (who tend to be more in control of their own destinies as they acquire the education) have lower fertility rates does not mean that “they should be having more children”. The fact is that as women (and men, too) acquire more education and control over their lives, they can choose when to reproduce. That leads to lower fertility rates, older and more stable parents… better families and more stable populations all around.

So it’s not that more-educated people should overpopulate their world, it’s that more people should get more education – and control of their lives – and be in a position to make better choices. (I so seldom agree with her that I thought it worth pointing out when I do.)

The rest of y’all must be having some kind of ‘fun’ with inventing new ways to control people’s lives and kill them off. Some fun.

Television seems to help to reduce population growth, too, by the way. It’s non-violent, non-coercive and somewhat addictive, but it’s a sort of opiate that people can choose on their own.

@Nullo that may be a parental thing, but it’s not exclusive. Perhaps we should ALL be providing this meme to all children, especially girls. This feeds in nicely to what @Simone_De_Beauvoir was saying. Educate the girls.

“If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family (nation).”